


Cold Hands

by a_novel_idea



Series: all four of them [3]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Literal Sleeping Together, Sleeping Together, cuddle puddle, i'll have this ship even if i have to captain it myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 19:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12777873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_novel_idea/pseuds/a_novel_idea
Summary: Seattle's most recent freak snow storm leaves the Rowdies without power, so they pile in the Oh No Mobile and head to Amanda's to get warm.





	Cold Hands

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation of 'Cigarette Stealing Ways', but you don't have to read that one first.

Amanda wakes up at five AM because her phone is ringing incessantly. She rolls over, hand searching through the layers of sheets and blankets on her bed to locate the offending item, and her fingers finally find it just as it stops ringing. It doesn’t take thirty seconds for the noise to start again. She swipes her thumb across the screen without opening her eyes, and growls out,

“What.”

“H-hey, Manda,” a familiar voice stutters out.

“Vogel?” she asks, voice thick with sleep.

“Y-y-yeah.”

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Amanda asks, pushing herself into a sitting position to wake herself up better.

“C-can we c-co-come over? We’re a-at M-m-martin’s and the storm kn-knocked the power out-t and it’s fu-ucking freezing.”

“Storm?”

“There’s-s like four f-feet of snow on the g-ground,” Vogel says.

“Holy shit, really? What are you waiting for? Get your asses over here.”

“Th-thanks, Manda,” Vogel says.

Before the line cuts, she hears him yell, “Get the fuck up! Manda has power and it’s fucking cold here!”

Amanda takes a moment to blink the last of the sleep from her eyes, then rolls off of her mattress to find sweatpants and socks. She peaks out of her blinds, and, sure enough, there’s knee-deep snow on the ground. She drops the blinds back in place, and heads out of her room, stopping in the hallway to bump the heat up a few degrees. Downstairs in the storage closet, she pulls out all the spare blankets and pillows she and Farah have, lugging them up the stairs to her bedroom.

Heading back downstairs, she starts a pot of coffee and sets a pot of water to boil for hot chocolate; she doesn’t want coffee this early - not when she might be able to get a few more hours after the boys show up - and she sure as hell is not giving Vogel any coffee when they're going to be cooped up inside for who knows how long. The smell brings Farah out of her bedroom and down the stairs.

“What’s going on?” she asks blearily.

“Martin’s apartment complex lost power so the boys are coming over to crash and wait it out.”

“Did it snow?”

“Yeah,” Amanda huffs. “Like four fucking feet.”

“Damn,” Farah says. “I’m going back to bed.”

“We’ll try to keep it down, but I make no promises.”

“Please,” the older woman scoffs, “those boys are the exact opposite of ‘keeping it down’.”

“Yeah,” Amanda grins.

Just after the coffee is done brewing, there’s a knock on the door that lasts until she makes it down the hall to open it. Vogel is wrapped in a huge blanket, one of Gripps’s beanies pulled down over his ears, and the other three aren’t in any better shape. Cross has a scarf wound around his head, covering everything but his eyes, his shoulders seriously bulked up with layers. Gripps looks more or less the same, beanie and a jacket zipped up to his chin, but his eyes are screaming misery. Martin’s glasses are frosty, and Amanda can’t imagine that the cold feels good on the shaved sides of his head, and he’s abandoned his customary leather jacket for what looks like several flannels and a few scarves. Amanda ushers them in, shivering at the cold air they bring with them.

"Leave the cold stuff on the couch,” she says. “I’ve got the electric blanket on my bed set to high.”

“Thanks for lettin’ come over, Drummer,” Martin says, shedding a few of his layers.

“You guys know you’re always welcome. Why didn’t you call earlier?”

“Didn’t know we’d lost power ‘til ‘bout two,” he grumbles. “Didn’t wanna wake you.”

“Please,” she scoffs. “Like I’m not going to get a few more hours of sleep with the five of us in my bed.”

“Bed,” Gripps groans.

“There’s coffee,” Amanda offers. “And I put on water for hot chocolate.”

“Bed,” Vogel agrees.

“Alright,” she laughs. “The coffee will keep. Upstairs and to the left.”

Cross, Gripps, and Vogel make for the stairs, and Martin follows behind Amanda. The boys have yet to venture into the domain that is her room, all of them preferring to be close to the back door in case one of them wanted a smoke. She’s been living with Farah since spring semester of the year before, so she’s well settled in. The walls are white - she’d asked to paint them and been staunchly denied - and covered in photo frames and neon signs that she’d found in various places online. Her favorite is bright pink and hangs over her bed; it reads ‘Support Your Local Girl Gang’.

Her room is neat, though that isn’t normal, but there is a rather large pile of laundry spreading across the floor from the closet. None of the boys care as they climb into her queen sized bed; Amanda has never been so grateful that she splurged when it was time to replace her old twin. Martin crawls in first, lying on his side with his back up against the wall, and Cross motions for her to follow him. She ends up squished between Martin and Gripps, Vogel on the other side of Gripps, and Cross lying on top of both of them. It’s a tight fit with five of them, two of them being exceptionally broad in the shoulders, but not uncomfortable. Amanda is glad she turned on the electric blanket; she almost screams when Vogel shoves his ice cold feet in her direction.

Amanda turns so her back is pressed into Martin’s chest, and she feels him hesitate so she reaches over her shoulder and pulls his arm around her waist. His hands are cold, causing chill bumps to break out across her chest and arms, and she shudders a little. Martin seems to take this as a bad sign because he starts to pull away.

“No, no,” she says, pulling him back over her. “It’s fine. You’re hands are just cold.”

“Sorry,” he says quietly, conscious of the snores already buzzing out of Vogel.

“You’ll warm up,” she says.

“Thanks for lettin’ us come over, Drummer.”

His breath is warm on the back of her neck.

“You guys are always welcome,” she yawns, tucking herself a little further into the blankets to get another few hours.

***

Amanda wakes up warm, but not uncomfortably so. She’s surrounded by quiet and muted light, and when she pulls out from Martin’s arm - just enough that she can see over his shoulder to where her alarm clock is perched in the window sill - she notices that it’s just the two of them left in bed. She doesn’t know where Vogel, Gripps, and Cross went, and is actually surprised that they managed to leave without bouncing her and Martin awake or making enough noise to do it. She lies back down, turns on her side to face him, and lets his arm settle back over her waist.

There’s something different about Martin when he’s asleep, something softer, though not necessarily more tame; she doesn’t think any of the boys could ever be described with the word ‘tame’. His glasses are gone, laid next to her clock in the window, and the white mohawk that’s usually so meticulously maintained is listing to one side and has lost most of its stiffness. He has a bandage over his nose - the remnants still lingering after getting his nose broken in a bar fight when someone took a disliking to Vogel - and the outside of his left eye has faded from a rather magnificent purple to a garish yellow. He has unbelievably long eyelashes that are just as dark as his beard, and they’re something Amanda finds herself jealous over.

“You’re starin’, Drummer,” Martin mutters.

Amanda almost jumps out of her skin; she hadn’t known he was awake. She gets him back by pulling the pillow from under her head and whacking him in the face with it. Martin laughs, one arm coming to wrap around the pillow, the other pulling her closer to his chest and giving her less of an opportunity for leverage.

“You’re such a jerk, Martin,” she says, but they can both hear the lie in her voice. “How long have you been awake?”

“Woke up ‘bout an hour ago, but you wasn’t up so I stayed put.”

“You didn’t have to stay,” she says, though she’s touched he’d been so thoughtful.

“Nah,” he dismisses. “Was our fault you was up so early. ‘Sides, you look like you needed it.”

She leans down and kisses the bandage of his nose.

“Thanks for letting me sleep,” she says. “I’ll ignore the crack about my looks.”

“Now, Drummer,” Martin teases as she rolls off the mattress, stretching her arms above her head, “ain’t no way you don’t know you’re prettier than I am, even if you are looking a little ragged.”

Amanda faux-gasps in shock, bending at the waist to scoop a dirty shirt off the floor as she whips back around; she chucks it at his face, though it doesn’t have near the effect she was hoping. Martin starts to laugh harder, pulling the offending item off of his head. Amanda flips him off, heading for the bathroom connected to her room. When she closes the door behind her, Martin is still laughing.

The bathroom is probably the most well kept of her personal areas, and she has her mother to thank for the deep seated fear of someone judging her on the state of her shower. The cosmetics are neatly organized, the tub is free of hair and grime, and the tiles practically shine. She washes her face and brushes her teeth over the sink, then fishes for a hair tie in the one collect-all drawer she allows herself. She pulls all of her hair up on top of her head, and applies her daily moisturizer.

When she opens the door to re-enter her bedroom, she’s struck by the sight of Martin - sans glasses, mused hair, bare arms - sitting on the side of the bed, illuminated by the light from the window behind him. The softness from earlier is replaced by this ethereal sense of both peace and strength, and it leaves Amanda feeling a little breathless; she knows that if she were a visual arts student instead of a music major, this is the scene she could never hope to perfect for her final project.

Martin breaks the spell by leaning back and swiping his glasses, shoving them back up his nose. Amanda’s feet stutter for a step and she nearly ends up face first in the pile of dirty laundry on the floor. Martin snorts, but doesn’t say anything, standing and stretching, his shirt climbing up to expose a few inches of skin around his hips.

“Fuck off, Martin,” Amanda says.

“Walk much?” he snipes.

“You watch your fucking mouth,” she grins. “I’m the Keeper of the Coffee today, and I’ll keep your cup full of god awful watery, burnt bean juice.”

“Ma’am, yes, ma’am,” Martin smirks, scooping one of his flannels up from the floor and pulling it over his arms. “We goin’ downstairs?”

“I guess,” she says. “Should probably go make sure the boys haven’t set anything on fire.”

“Nah,” he says, following her out of the bedroom. “Ya’ll’s got fire alarms.”

“Doesn’t mean they aren’t trying.”

“True.”

The first floor is suspiciously quiet when the two of them hit the landing, and Amanda looks over her shoulder at Martin in concern; he shrugs at her. Rounding the end of the stairs, Amanda finds the living room empty but for Farah, who’s sat in her favorite chair with a book and a cup of coffee. She glances up at them and murmurs a ‘good morning’, then returns to her story.

“Uh, where’re the boys?” Amanda asks.

“I sent them to the store,” Farah says simply.

“There’s four feet of snow on the ground.”

“They took Martin’s van.” Martin look alarmed for just a moment before Farah continues, “Cross was driving.”

“What they gettin’?” Martin asks.

“Food, paper towels, a few cases of soda. If you need to add anything to the list, they only left half an hour ago.”

“Lord,” Martin sighs. “They won’t be back before noon.”

“It _is_ noon,” Amanda says.

“There’s bacon in the microwave,” Farah says helpfully, turning another page in her book.

“Thanks, Farah,” Amanda says, turning around to head back to the kitchen.

Martin follows, close enough that she can feel him moving behind her. She heads for the microwave, intent on food, and Martin veers off to pull to mugs down for coffee. He takes his with about five spoons of sugar; Amanda takes hers black. She trades him a small plate of bacon for her mug, and follows him back to the living room. Martin sits first, taking a corner on the couch, and Amanda sits far enough away that she can turn and tuck her cold toes under his leg. He hisses at the cold, but she makes up for it by dragging a blanket over both their laps.

“Who cooked?” Amanda asks, setting the fattiest piece of bacon to the side so she can eat it last.

“Vogel,” Farah says. “Gripps and Cross did the dishes.”

“And we still have a kitchen?” Amanda asks dryly.

“I supervised.”

Martin snorts.

“Toss me the remote?” Amanda asks Farah.

The other woman hums and lobbs the device in her direction; it’s a little off course and whacks her in her knee.

“Thanks,” she says absently, hitting the power button and flipping the channel to the news.

“ - and we aren’t expecting any changes for the next two days. I hope everyone has enough groceries, because it looks like this snow is here to stay.”

Amanda groans.

“They already canceled classes for the week,” Farah says.

“Maybe you can learn to walk by then,” Martin comments innocently.

Amanda pulls one of her feet out from under his leg and kicks him in the side; Farah, who’s more than familiar with their antics by now, ignores them. Martin retaliates by swiping a piece of bacon, so Amanda moves his coffee cup out of reach. He narrows his eyes, and Amanda smirks in challenge. Next she knows, Amanda is halfway into Martin’s lap, being pulled by her ankles to he can reach her ribs.

“No!” she shouts, but she can’t stop the laughter when he lays his fingers on her ribs.

“Give up!”

“Never!” she crows. “Farah, help!”

“You got yourself into that mess, you can get yourself out,” she smiles.

“There’s no help coming!” Martin growls.

Amanda tries to wriggle out of his grip, but he won’t let go. She’s shrieking loud enough to miss the front door opening, miss the clamor of the boys returning from the store, but she does hear Vogel’s battle cry. He pounces on Martin, shopping bags dropped on the floor, and Amanda tumbles off the couch. She rights herself, has a good, honest laugh at the sight of Vogel sitting on top of Martin and trying to wrestle him into submission, then joins the fray herself.

Together, she and Vogel still don’t have much of a chance in beating him, but Cross decides he’s on their side, leaving Gripps to put away the groceries and shake his head at their antics. Between the three of them, they manage to pull him off the couch and pile on top of him. He hits the floor with an oomf, the breath knocked out of him, and Amanda is pretty sure that’s the only reason they win.

Crowing victory, Vogel and Cross get back to their feet to help cross in the kitchen, leaving Amanda sitting on the older man’s chest. She sees Farah roll her eyes, and smiles at her roommate. Looking down at Martin, his glasses askew on his face, smile tipping the corners of his mouth up, she’s caught again by how beautiful he is.

“You’re starin’, Drummer,” Martin says. “Again.”

She hrumphs, and rolls off his chest, rescuing her bacon from where it had spilled onto the couch. He laughs, climbing to his feet after her, and heading for the kitchen to see what the boys are into. Amanda plops back down on the sofa, shoving a piece of bacon in her mouth, and catches Farah side-eyeing her.

“What?” she mumbles around her food.

Farah’s eyebrow raises.

“What?” she asks again.

“Nothing,” Farah says.

“Nothing my ass,” Amanda says. “What?”

Farah closes her book and says, “You need to do something about that.”

“About what?”

The other woman looks at her flatly, gets up, and heads to the stairs.

“About what?” Amanda calls after her.

She doesn’t get an answer.

 


End file.
